


portacaths switched

by semperfemina



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, KiHo Bingo, M/M, an inception inspired au, contains references to disassociation and suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-28 20:48:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11425917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/semperfemina/pseuds/semperfemina
Summary: you can lose yourself in a dream, maybe without trying, sooner than you think.the realization comes to kihyun (too late, always a step behind) that maybe hoseok wanted to be lost.





	portacaths switched

**Author's Note:**

> hello friends, lapselock because i wrote this on my phone in an hour and that probably explains everything about how horrible it is!
> 
> my first prompt, "dream" for kiho bingo!

for what it's worth - 

hoseok was in too deep from the start. it preceded kihyun, the dreams they shared and the waking world they knew. the drugs used for dream sharing are drugs, after all, and you know what you're getting yourself into. it's a slippery slope. 

when they met (a formality, a job) hoseok had already been falling into the dreams on his own. he doesn't seem proud when he tells kihyun this, nor does he seem wary - he mentions it offhand, casual, the way someone might bring up the weather. 

("you design well," hoseok told him after the job was over and kihyun was happy enough to accept a compliment but hoseok cut him off, spoke over him. "not the best i've ever seen, but impressive nonetheless." 

and there had come a lull, kihyun unsure what to say to the compliment that was no longer a compliment and hoseok biting his tongue, biding his time. 

"you can do more - " hoseok said. "show me."

it didn't seem like an invitation so much as it did a challenge.)

 

you can do anything in a dream, and hoseok does the the impossible and the unthinkable and he pushes and bends and warps things, because he can. 

he does the things he fears, in his dreams, and they climb a tall, tall tower. kihyun builds it for him. 

on the roof, they are so high up that the ground below looks almost like a mosaic, all of the small pieces coming together to become a bigger picture. hoseok leans cautious over the edge to look and he laughs: kihyun smiles. 

"it's safe to do anything," hoseok says and in the dream, on the roof, kihyun kisses him because he can, because it feels like the thing to do.

hoseok kisses him back and in the dream, time slips by the way that honey pours, languid and sweet. 

 

upon waking, they don't talk. 

it's not that they say a lot in sleep, either. but in the dream, they don't have to talk. they build the world around themselves in the dream, they bend and twist it and there is an awe, an understanding -

they've created a world. there's not much to say. there is never silence in the dream - there is the sound of traffic, of the low hum of conversation in a coffee shop, the sound of surf crashing against a shoreline. (in hoseok's dreams there is music, always music - faint and low, filling up any space accidentally left empty.)

when they wake, they wake to quiet. kihyun stirs first and steals a glance at hoseok, blissful and unaware, still sleeping in the armchair across from him - kihyun looks away before he opens his eyes. 

the machine between them has stopped its rhythmic whirring, the sound almost like breathing, and the streets outside are silent. 

it is perfect and still and deafening. it is solitary. 

hoseok turns the machine back on, slips back into unconsciousness. 

kihyun follows. 

 

hoseok builds in the dreams, too, but not the way kihyun does. kihyun's dreams are crisp, they are detailed and voided at the same time; specific but unassuming. they don't boast. they just are, much like what awaits upon waking. 

hoseok's dreams are painfully specific, they are all light and color and feel and sound. they're immersive, inviting; hoseok can dream a library full of books, each of the spines gold-foiled and the binding pops when the books open. 

kihyun dreams of a world so much like the real one and hoseok dreams of something much more dangerous - something much better. 

something much harder to leave. 

 

hoseok won't tell him what he's running from. 

he won't tell kihyun what he's chasing in the dreams or why he seems to need more and more time for them each day and kihyun follows out of curiosity and wonder. 

they build worlds together, lives together, and it's good but it isn't real happiness. it's like living in a storybook and kihyun thinks it odd that he can know hoseok so entirely in the dream but know nothing about him upon waking. (and he wants the real thing, he wants the imperfections of the waking world, the hoseok that exists outside the dreams - 

"but we have all of this," hoseok says, and every time he kisses kihyun, a building on the skyline they made crumbles, falling impossibly silent in a cloud of dust.)

 

the dreams begin to go wrong - they become discolored and watery and suddenly they're quiet, too, filled with the static. they feel watery and unmanageable and the harder kihyun works to try and right the upside down feel of it all, the worse it gets. 

they've become nightmares, kihyun realizes, and they're harder to come out of each time he sleeps. (he is in a room filling slowly with water, a car with no brakes - the dreams become a dark coffin and there is no air, he's smothering. 

hoseok is beside him, always.)

"why?" kihyun asks. "why are you doing this?"

hoseok doesn't answer - instead he turns away, turns his back and hides his face and kihyun is finding it harder to know when the dream ends and their world begins.

 

 

the two of them sit in the middle of a city street but the street is empty. the buildings around them are gutted, exposed wires and caved in roofs. 

"we can do anything here. we can have anything here. it can be perfect, it can be just for us." 

but it's not the same, kihyun says. it's playing house, it's a fantasy, made-up. this is make believe, kihyun tells him. 

"hoseok, this isn't real," kihyun reasons but he only looks hurt, disappointed. hoseok looks like kihyun is telling him a lie and there's an unraveling, a spiraling, and there's no stopping it, kihyun knows, it's too late to stop it. 

kihyun goes back into the dreams because he won't give up - because he still thinks there's time, he still thinks there's something to fix. he can feel hoseok moving away from him, away from reality, falling deeper into a darkness that neither of them can even begin to fathom and he feels helpless to stop it. 

and maybe the only thing real anymore is the fear, the undoing, the slow and winding descent. 

 

kihyun always follows. 

in the dream, hoseok leads him through streets and alleys and across bridges. through a tunnel. he leads him to an apartment building, tall and looming. 

kihyun has seen this building before, or one like it.

he follows hoseok -

up the stairs, down the hallway, to a door marked 301 and then inside. hoseok crosses the living room and stares out the window on the opposite wall. the window is open. the air is blowing in. 

"there's a book store over there," he's saying, "and a shop next door where you can still buy candy out of those glass jars." 

kihyun is looking around and for a moment he feels nauseous, he feels disoriented. he feels outside of himself. it's too much - the room is too much, it's too full - too real and it's suffocating. 

"what is this place?" he asks after a moment and hoseok doesn't turn from the window. he stares out. 

"i grew up here," he says and kihyun thinks this isn't right, they shouldn't be here. 

(you can't do this, you know you can't do this - he wants to say this, but he doesn't. instead he stands in the living room, feeling frozen and finally hoseok turns, looks over his shoulder, and smiles: i wanted you to see it, he says, and then he jumps from the window.) 

 

"i want to wake up - " hoseok says, and he's groggy. his voice is coarse. 

"i want to wake up, i want to wake up - " and he's yelling, he's shouting at the top of his lungs before kihyun can get to his side and when he is there, finally, his hands firm on either side of hoseok's face, it isn't enough. 

i want to wake up, i want to wake up, i want to wake up but the machine between them is off and the drugs are all gone and the world is still and perfect; kihyun wakes. 

hoseok doesn't; hasn't for a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> gee golly, this is the first thing i've written to "completion" in many, many moons. thank you for being gracious enough to read it! 
> 
> my soundtrack for this was a combination of manchester orchestra and the antlers' discographies. 10/10, would write to again. 
> 
> find me on twitter @cliffparades.


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